Cannes 2018: Spike Lee calls Trump 'motherf***er' for response to Charlottesville riots

'That motherf**ker did not denounce the Klan, the alt-right, and those Nazi motherf**kers'

Spike Lee has criticised Donald Trump's response to the Charlottesville riots, calling the President a "motherf**ker" following a screening of his new film BlacKkKlansman.

Refusing to say Trump’s name at the Cannes Film Festival press conference, the director spoke at length about the response to the white nationalist rally and the violent aftermath.

“That motherf**ker was given a chance to say we are ‘bout love, and not hate, and that motherf**ker did not denounce the motherf**king Klan, the alt-right, and those Nazi motherf**kers,” he told the Cannes audience, according to Variety.

“It was a defining moment, and he could’ve said to the world… that we were better than that.”

He added: “We look to our leaders to give us direction, to make moral decisions, and I like to say this is not just something that pertains to the United States of America, this bulls**t is going all over the world. We have to wake up. And we can’t be silent.”

Set in the early 70s, BlacKkKlansman tells the true story of Ron Stallworth who, after becoming the first African-American detective on the Colorado Springs Police Department, sets out to infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan while posing as a racist extremist.

The director said the movie – which received rave reviews and an eight-minute standing ovation at the film festival – was on the “right side of history”, later commenting on how the story connects with the politics of the present day.

Lee said that CNN footage of Charlotesville acted as the “coda for the film” and that he asked the mother of Heather Heyer – a woman who died at the march – to use footage of the death in the movie. “I was not gonna put that murder scene in the film without her blessing,” he said.

He also commented on how BlacKkKlansman was framed by the idea that America “was built upon the genocide of native people, and slavery,” calling it “the fabric of the United States of America.” Lee added: “What’s happening did not just pop up out of thin air.”

The film, which is produced by Get Out's Jordan Peele, stars John David Washington, Adam Driver and Topher Grace in the lead roles.